New 21.5 inch 2013 iMac

madele · Oct 31, 2013

I need your advice on purchasing a new 21.5 inch 2013 iMac:

I do not want the 27 inch as I am either having to do the crazy eyes or having to nod like a bobble head
on a car dash board to see the whole screen and get cross between snow blind and motion sick.

I am considering: 2.7GHz or 2.9GHz or i7.
Plus: Fusion Drive as it sounds great and the 16GB upgrade for sure as I max out 8GB now.
I will be using it all day and everyday working from home and already have an external back up.

I do no gaming or graphic design work or high end video editing.
I own a professional photo scanner and do photo editing on a photo by photo basis.
I do research on-line and often have an extreme amount of windows and tabs open at once.
I am also sorting through and trashing thousands of images and max out the software.

Plus: All the other usual everyday home and home office uses

DynamicNotch · Oct 31, 2013

I would go with the 2.7GHz and get 512GB flash instead.

madele · Oct 31, 2013

trans-olsx said:
I would go with the 2.7GHz and get 512GB flash instead.

Please explain why .. Thank you

firedept · Oct 31, 2013

The 2.7GHz. Upgrade the RAM as it can not be done at a later time.

The fusion drive offers you the best of 2 worlds. It offers you faster start up speeds and faster program starts. It also offers you the large storage. If you have never used an SSD drive, then you would never notice the ever so slight difference in speed between the SSD and Fusion Drive. Average person can not tell the difference.

For what you intend to use the iMac for, save the money by not going with the 512GB SSD. It is $300 more and will give you no advantage.

tom vilsack · Oct 31, 2013

base 2.7 with ug 16 ram and ug 256g ssd

-base 2.7 is more then enough for your needs
-upgrade ram to 16g to future proof and because 21.5" ram upgrade not so easy to do on your own
-256g ssd because once you use a ssd you will understand,kept size to 256 because of price and fact you can always store needed files on a external drive

Apple fanboy · Oct 31, 2013

Very happy with mine (specs below). Fusion Drive is almost as fast as an SSD in normal use for a fraction of the cost. RAM upgrade should future proof you for the next few years.

madele · Oct 31, 2013

madele · Oct 31, 2013

Just realized that you cannot get the SSD and the Fusion and that you have to choose between them.
I am really not sure about getting anything less than 1TB.

Please tell me the difference between the 512GB Flash Storage and 1TB Fusion Drive .. Thank you

firedept · Nov 1, 2013

madele said:
Just realized that you cannot get the SSD and the Fusion and that you have to choose between them.
I am really not sure about getting anything less than 1TB.

Please tell me the difference between the 512GB Flash Storage and 1TB Fusion Drive .. Thank you

The 512GB SSD will a single drive that will operate and store all your files on your computer. Pros, very fast. Cons, less storage than Fusion Drive. 512GB is still a lot of storage.

The Fusion Drive is a combination 128GB SSD plus 1TB or 3TB HDD. The SSD will have programs and files on it that you use on a regular basis, but will transfer files not used regularly on to the HDD portion. Pros, more storage. Cons, not as fast as pure SSD.

If you have the money a 512GB SSD is a good choice. You can use external drive for additional storage. If you want to save money, then the Fusion Drive is the way to go. Not as fast as pure SSD but still fast.

I have a 1TB Fusion Drive in my iMac and love it. I also have a MacBook Pro with a 160GB SSD and enjoy it as well. I have a hard time telling the speed difference between the two. Both are quiet.

madele · Nov 1, 2013

Thank you for your response:
I am not so concerned about cost and I need to purchase like now.
I am afraid the 512GB SSD will not be large enough and external storage is kinda fussy and might be kinda slow.
I think people often under estimate my use and I am already down sizing from two computers.

Apple fanboy · Nov 1, 2013

madele said:
Thank you for your response:
I am not so concerned about cost and I need to purchase like now.
I am afraid the 512GB SSD will not be large enough and external storage is kinda fussy and might be kinda slow.
I think people often under estimate my use and I am already down sizing from two computers.

If your external storage is USB3 or better still Thunderbolt, it won't be slow. Whichever you choose (personally I'd go FD) you will still need some sort of external for back ups.

madele · Nov 1, 2013

Apple fanboy said:
If your external storage is USB3 or better still Thunderbolt, it won't be slow. Whichever you choose (personally I'd go FD) you will still need some sort of external for back ups.

Thank you for your response:
I have 6X 1TB WD external HD for back up and storage and they are USB3 and I think my iMac is USB2.
I recently added a 1TB of movies and it took some time to transfer.
I do not want to give up space for speed and mostly do not want the added fuss !!

----------

I am thinking:

2.7GHz Quad-core Intel Core i5, Turbo Boost up to 3.2GHz
16GB 1600MHz DDR3 SDRAM -2X8GB
1TB Fusion Drive
Intel Iris Pro Graphics
Apple Mouse
Apple Keyboard with Numeric Keypad (English) & User's Guide
AppleCare Protection Plan for iMac - Auto-enroll
Accessory Kit

2Turbo · Nov 1, 2013

I would get 256gb or 512 SSD internal (depending on OS/App space requirements) then hook up USB 3.0 external storage for everything else. That way you remove chances of mechanical hdd failure (much higher than SSD and non user-replaceable).

Get a 4TB USB 3.0 external HDD and it will feel just as fast as an internal HDD. I'm getting a WD 2TB portable external that runs off USB power so I don't have such a big box with power supply/fan running all the time.

I think the 27" would be great for someone working all day with many tabs/app. It's better to have to look slightly over than try to bring up another window thats buried in a mess of your workflow. That's just what I would do.

That's just what I would do.

yjchua95 · Nov 2, 2013

Get the 3.1GHz i7 option, plus 16GB RAM and a 256GB SSD. You''ll need the 1GB of discrete GT 750M sooner or later. The 8 threads in the i7 will be useful (the i5s only have 4 threads).

You can move your storage to an external media. The Fusion drive is slower than a pure SSD setup, so I recommend a 256GB SSD and an external drive instead.

firedept · Nov 2, 2013

madele said:
I recently added a 1TB of movies and it took some time to transfer.
I do not want to give up space for speed and mostly do not want the added fuss !!

2.7GHz Quad-core Intel Core i5, Turbo Boost up to 3.2GHz
16GB 1600MHz DDR3 SDRAM -2X8GB
1TB Fusion Drive
Intel Iris Pro Graphics
Apple Mouse
Apple Keyboard with Numeric Keypad (English) & User's Guide
AppleCare Protection Plan for iMac - Auto-enroll
Accessory Kit

I think that is an excellent choice.

1TB of files to move is going to take some time. This new iMac will be much faster than your old one and will last you for some years to come. I have a late 2012 iMac and it has not even flinched at anything I have thrown at it.

Enjoy whatever decision you make.

tom vilsack · Nov 2, 2013

madele said:
]I am thinking:

1TB Fusion Drive

then your thinking wrong!!!

get a ssd!!!

I don't care what some of these others may say,there just plain wrong! Once you go pure ssd you will never (Repeat never) go back to any type of harddrive,hybrid drive ect

get a ssd!!!

yjchua95 · Nov 2, 2013

tom vilsack said:
then your thinking wrong!!!

get a ssd!!!

I don't care what some of these others may say,there just plain wrong! Once you go pure ssd you will never (Repeat never) go back to any type of harddrive,hybrid drive ect

get a ssd!!!

I concur with this one. Once you experience the 650MB/s of write speeds and 720MB/s of read speeds, you can never get used to Fusion, which is slower.

But I think the OP should go for the i7 option. The performance gains are significantly obvious with 8 threads in the i7. The i5s only have 4 threads.

Each thread is a virtual core.

madele · Nov 2, 2013

Thank you all for your responses:
I agree SSD sounds really great and I hope in the future Apple will make a 1TB SSD :apple:

Please tell me how you do back up if you are working on both an internal and an external HD

yjchua95 · Nov 2, 2013

madele said:
Thank you all for your responses:
I agree SSD sounds really great and I hope in the future Apple will make a 1TB SSD
Please tell me how you do back up if you are working on both an internal and an external HD

Apple does have a 1TB SSD option, but the price is astronomical.

I also work with both internal and external drives. But my external drive is an RAID 10 Promise Pegasus R6, where if a drive fails, at least I don't lose data. So I don't do backups for it.

For you, I suggest you use a 3rd party (paid) utility called SuperDuper. Buy two external drives, one for working and one solely for backup. Then, use SuperDuper to clone the contents of the work drive to the backup drive. Backups are incremental.

madele · Nov 2, 2013

I would need to back up both the external drive and the computer with the SSD

Or
I could get the Fusion Drive and only back up the once

yjchua95 · Nov 2, 2013

madele said:
I would need to back up both the external drive and the computer with the SSD
Or
I could get the Fusion Drive and only back up the once

In that case, get a dedicated external drive just for backups for both your work external drive and SSD. Split the backup drive into two partitions (one for the external work drive and one for the SSD). Then you're done, two separate backups in one drive.

EDIT: I wouldn't recommend the Fusion Drive, it's much slower compared to a pure SSD.

madele · Nov 2, 2013

I am going to look at the 512 SSD to see if it might be big enough .. I do like the idea

yjchua95 · Nov 2, 2013

madele said:
I am going to look at the 512 SSD to see if it might be big enough .. I do like the idea

I've got a 512GB SSD in my Sandy Bridge MBP and two years later, I still have 122GB free. I've to try to clean up at least 200GB of old photos from previous photographing assignments, so let's call that 322GB free. I think you'll find 512GB sufficient.

d0nK · Nov 3, 2013

£1,299 2.9GHz i5 + 1TB Fusion Drive (+£160) would be perfect.

8 Gig RAM is way more than you need and that comes as standard.
I'm still on 4 Gig RAM and I use my mbp more intensively than most (audio creation, photo editing, 3D rendering).

If you edit a lot of video, then I imagine more than 8Gig RAM would be good.

If you can afford 512G SSD then go for it (+£400), but you'll also probs need an external drive sooner or later for your data, plus the external backup drive required.

I'm at 1.7TB audio data, 350Gigs iTunesMedia, 400Gigs Photo's, etc, etc... but everyone has different storage requirements so that's for you to decide.

ioannis2005gr · Nov 4, 2013

yjchua95 said:
Get the 3.1GHz i7 option, plus 16GB RAM and a 256GB SSD. You''ll need the 1GB of discrete GT 750M sooner or later. The 8 threads in the i7 will be useful (the i5s only have 4 threads).

You can move your storage to an external media. The Fusion drive is slower than a pure SSD setup, so I recommend a 256GB SSD and an external drive instead.

Very nice choice!

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